Pork Month: Thinking Alternatively

A self-professed “foodie”, Yuzhi Li grew up in Shenyang, China, which is one of the largest cities in the northeast part of the country. Prior to college, she had never even seen a real pig before. It was love at first sight.

Today, Li leads a robust organic swine research program at the U of M West Central Research and Outreach Center (WCROC), which she joined in 2005. Her research focuses broadly on understanding and improving the behavior and management of pigs in organic production methods. Through her work, Li develops new management methods to address issues that impact pork producers around the world.

Alternative Production Research to Manage Swine Behavior

In conventional swine production, producers use management tools like farrowing/gestation stalls and tail docking. These methods are necessary due to the aggressive attacks and fights that break out in pig pens and help to minimize injury and pig mortality but have raised concerns with animal rights organizations.

Li recognizes these aggressive behaviors as abnormal. “Wild pigs don’t fight and bite each other’s tails at the rates we see in conventional production facilities. I want to understand what is missing from conventional production that is causing aggression in the pigs.” To this end, Li developed a research facility at WCROC that mimics the environment pigs would experience in the wild. Pigs are in group housing with related sows and have outdoor access, soft bedding, and hiding spots for lower social-status pigs.

Expanding on her previous research into swine behavior, Li is currently working on a USDA-funded project with collaborators from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that uses 24/7 cameras and computer vision to track pigs and record aggressive behaviors, like tail biting. Li cross-references that data against the social status and immune status of the aggressor and victim to better identify the underlying indicators of tail-biting outbreaks. 

Li started research on tail-biting outbreaks 10 years ago, first by studying tail-biting in related and non-related piglets and later by utilizing video recordings to demonstrate that increased pig activity can indicate an upcoming tail-biting outbreak. These studies gained attention from industry partners and organizations like the National Pork Board.

Li believes her work in understanding the underlying causes of tail biting and aggressive behaviors will one day allow producers to point out a specific pen or a specific pig that will become a problem. With more research, the pork industry may no longer need to dock tails for animal welfare and producers across the country will have effective, alternative production methods to implement on their farms.